Headscratchers / Thirteen (2003)

• What's the deal with Evie's stories?
  • Evie tells several different stories throughout the movie, "my mom is dead", my mom was a crackwhore", my mom's boyfriend hits me", "my uncle abused me", she has actual bruises on her neck and a burn scar on her back to support this, is it ever implied what is actually true? Is it implied that she made those bruises on herself, or is there actually an off-screen abuser we don't see? She's definetely implied to be a manipulator a big part of the time and making things up, but considering how quickly she moves in with Tracy and acts desperate to live with them at the end, some of the backstory would appear to be true too. Anyone has a take on what we were supposed to interpret from her claims and injuries?
    • How is "my mom ist dead" and "my mom WAS a crackwhore" contradictory? and with "my moms boyfriends" she meant Brookes boyfriend.
  • Word of God states that they wanted Evie's background to be ambiguous intentionally but to imply that there was some obvious trauma; notably, a lot of trauma survivors who don't have proper outlets will turn to storytelling or compulsive lying because they're always worried they're not sympathetic enough. Evie shows throughout the film she's a Consummate Liar, but it's likely more of a trauma response than purely being a rotten person.

• Was the narrative about this movie being an "autobiographic" portrayal of Nikki Reed's life exaggerated for Oscar-bait? Hardwicke had said in the film's promotional stage that it was "semi-autobiographical" about Reed's life and that Reed was "the Tracey," so many accepted that as the film being a direct adaptation of events Reed went through. However, this has been disputed by those who went to school with Reed, stating that she was an honor-roll student who rarely got into trouble, and even Reed and Hardwicke themselves stated in the DVD commentary that it was less of a direct adaptation of things Reed went through herself. There was no one "other girl" leading her astray and it was more things she witnessed, or more mild things like (in Hardwicke's words) "getting up at 4 AM to do eyeliner." It seemed that Hardwicke intervened in Reed's behaviour quite early, giving her a creative project to work on before getting too out-of-hand, but it seems clear that Reed's life never went in the direction that Tracey's did. So why exaggerate that? Was it to give the film more credibility as a "gritty, realistic portrayal of teen life in LA?" Was it to garner profile for Reed? Was it manipulation for Oscar Bait?